Department of History

Tel: (65) 6516 3757
Office: AS1 05 - 43

Having grown up in Vancouver, Canada, I have always felt an affinity for the history of multi-cultural port cities and in particular for those of the Mediterranean: Barcelona, Marseilles, Athens, Thessaloniki, Istanbul, etc. I received my B.A. in history from Simon Fraser University and then did my MA and PhD at the University of Toronto with an emphasis on the religious and political history of the Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century. My research work deals primarily with the Orthodox Christian peoples of the Near East (Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians, etc) and the history of diplomacy, empires, and imperialism in the modern Mediterranean. At present, I am preparing a book on the problem of European religious protectorates in the Ottoman Empire during the 1830s-1850s, a question that embroiled many parties (from the Orthodox clergy and laity to representatives of the British, French, Russian, Austrian, and Ottoman empires) in a fierce debate over the proper boundaries of Church and State and between their respective spheres of political influence in the region. Before coming to NUS in 2007, I taught courses in World, Mediterranean, and Modern Greek history at Queens University and York University, and in 2005/2006 I did a post-doctoral fellowship at the Program in Hellenic Studies at Princeton. For pleasure, I enjoy travel, kayaking, and hiking in the mountains (the latter an activity not so easily accomplished in Singapore, unfortunately).

TEACHING AREAS: